


I’m in with the IT crowd (Mind the Gap)

by Aeshna etonensis (GMWWemyss)



Series: Englishmen (and an Irishman) Abroad: Five Men in the Same Boat. To Say Nothing of the Dog.... [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Britpicking, Gen, Homesickness, Humour, M/M, Metafiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-15 05:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/845609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GMWWemyss/pseuds/Aeshna%20etonensis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Touring takes a toll, largely in homesickness. Fortunately, there's always the World Service....</p>
            </blockquote>





	I’m in with the IT crowd (Mind the Gap)

**Author's Note:**

> This, of course, is the merest fiction.
> 
> It is also what pretentious French theorists (redundant, I know) and their followers in various provincial redbrick polys call metafictional. And I do realise that it may well get up various people’s noses. But it really isn’t meant to do. 
> 
> I am resisting manfully the temptation to be drawn into this fandom; but I know how this goes. I stumble across a British-canon fandom. I succumb to the urge to Britpick. Several years later, I’m far too well known in said fandom.
> 
> Well, not this time. No, I mean it, damn it all. All I meant, and mean, to do is to poke about so as to research for the Wizarding boyband in my own, true fandom. Ad interim, I committed this: and I urge that you regard it, not as a metafictional condemnation of works I have in fact read with some enjoyment, but rather as a mnemonic for those who are in fact actual, dedicated writers in this fandom. If nothing else, it may amuse, which is all I ask of it. (It amused me, at any rate.)

They were somewhere in the fungible and featureless vastness of North America, in a hotel like every other hotel. They were tired. They’d all had a few jars, even Liam, but they’d none of them wanted to go out (not even Louis or Harry, let alone Louis- _and_ -Harry).

And they were very, very homesick.

Sometimes – as they’d overheard one of their roadies say once, in a rural accent that had cut them all, knifelike, with pangs of homesickness, or at least a flashback to hearing _The Archers_ on a gran’s wireless, naff yet obscurely comforting – _sometimes_ (he’d said), you takes your entertainments where _as_ you finds ’em….

They had all of them their roles: not only the ones that the market assigned them, but also the ones they’d chosen for themselves, privately, within their tight circle, the roles they’d assumed in hopes that assuming them might help them to cope. Even now, moulted from his shell though he was, Liam, for example, remained the sensible one, the organiser: not because there weren’t people to do that for them (although, if _Louis_ had insisted on being the internal Leader of the Band, they’d not be in a North American hotel on a sold-out tour, now or ever, not even were the Royal Logistics Corps organising them and their kit: they’d be stuck, sans luggage, at Bristol Temple Meads, having ended up there from Birmingham New Street via Pen-y-Bont and Arbroath whilst trying to get to Paddington for a connexion to Stansted … for a flight that was actually departing Heathrow), but rather because the only way in which Liam could process and cope with all this was by at least _feeling_ he was in control of the mundane things.

And, similarly, Niall had taken on the task of managing their private IT, because there, at least, they really _couldn’t_ trust the people charged with doing that for them. He kept a finger on the public pulse for them. (Louis, naturally, had said that the people who claimed Niall must actually be working out were as wrong as those who attributed his _arms_ – Harry was indulgent of Louis’ obsession with Niall’s (and Liam’s, and Zayn’s, as well – of course – with _Harry’s_ ) arms – to diligent wanking: it was, claimed the Tommo, all the typing and mouse-clicking Niall did….) Fortunately, Niall’s wide, indeed catholic, sympathies meant that he could face even fanfic – most fanfic; oh, very well, _some_ fanfic – with equanimity. Not to say outright hilarity. _You takes your entertainment wheres you finds it._ Forewarned was forearmed, after all, and there was the occasional diamond in the midden – and one or two useful suggestions that no one _ever_ mentioned aloud, although, Liam privately considered, Zayn should have wanted to be double-jointed in many more places than he was, for some of the more intriguing ideas to be really practicable.

They were knackered. One or Tommo of them were well on the way to bladdered. And beneath the familiar exhaustion of touring, they were bone-weary already with home-longing, a weariness not even a week’s sleep could cure.

‘Do they ever,’ murmured Harry, sleepily, comprehending in that ‘they’ their fans and those who ficced them, ‘realise we really only want to go _home_?’

‘Well,’ said Niall, consideringly. ‘T’ey do and t’ey don’t.’

Zayn managed to raise an eloquent, if languid, eyebrow. Wearily.

‘No reason t’ talk about t’e “proof” and “insider” blogs,’ snarled Niall. They knew that. The broad catholicity of Niall’s tolerance stopped well before the borders of _those_ blogs were reached, and they were none of them tired or incautious or drunk or foolish enough to let him get well away on _that_ rant.

‘“Insiders” – feckin’ balls. T’e shite t’ey –’

‘Niall.’

‘Feck it. We were talkin’ about t’ ot’er. So we were.’ He sighed. ‘Now, it isn’t t’e AUs and all are in my mind, now. Ye’re a Wizard, Harry –’

Harry managed a tired grin. He was too exhausted to duck his head and flick his hair in the approved fashion.

‘– And all of us at Hogwarts for our school; or we’re werewolves or vampires or t’e People of Peace –’

‘To be fair,’ slurred Louis, ‘four of us _are_ fairies.’

‘I’ve no patience wit’ ye at all,’ said Niall, patiently. ‘But what it is I’m talkin’ of is when we’re ourselves or near as makes no difference. T’ey understand, if we’re in a band, we want to go home and rest. Even if we’re not: if we’re all at university, but, or gone for soldiers every one, t’ough what t’e feck _I’m_ doin’ in t’e British Army servin’ under t’e Butcher’s Apron…. And it’s not t’e ones where Harry’s an amputee –’ Harry shuddered – ‘or Zayn’s a CEO –’

‘Or a terrorist,’ muttered Zayn, bitterly. Niall wisely ignored this. If _he_ wasn’t to be allowed an hour’s rant, neither was Zayn.

‘– or such t’ings whatever. It’s…. T’ey don’t know where we live.’

‘I should hope not,’ said Zayn. ‘Sodding fangirls abseiling down the side of the house, looking for a window.’

‘Oh and t’at’s not what I’m meanin’ at all, it isn’t. Say Liam’s a fireman, now.’

Liam’s tired eyes brightened, and the laugh lines crinkled at their corners. ‘Still sometimes wish I were,’ said he, softly. ‘E5 Station, Wolverhampton –’

There were times when Liam was all anorak. As Zayn found it ineluctably cute, and found Liam’s being cute positively aphrodisiac, he’d no incentive to change, either.

‘Which t’ey’ve never heard of, nor West Midlands Fire Service, t’ey don’t have fire brigades _in_ an FRS _in_ a council area, it’s all de- _part_ -ments. T’e _po_ -liss is all armed. If Harry’s sixteen, t’ey don’t know he’s reached t’e age of consent –’

No one bothered to mention that that had never stopped him anyway. Not even Louis bothered. They were actually _that_ tired.

‘– if Louis’ a homeless runaway – because ye’re _tiny_ and _fragile,_ me Tommeen, did y’ not know t’at? –’

Louis wasn’t too tired to look down at his lunchbox and smirk ironically. Harry was by no means too tired not to look at his own and return a superior smirk that caused Louis’ eyes to narrow and his lips to tighten their line.

‘– t’ere’s no CPS, no St Chris, no charities…. If Zayn’s blind or Liam’s been injured by a drink driver – I mean, _drunk_ driver, in t’is odd world t’ey create t’at’s meant to be t’e UK – t’ey can’t _af_ -ford to go t’ hospital….’

‘I think,’ said Zayn, with sleepy exactitude, ‘it’s “ _the_ hospital” as a rule. American’s not a dialect of English, it’s a form of Scots.’ He paused long enough to catch Niall’s eye, and to smirk a Tommo-worthy smirk. ‘ _Ulster_ Scots.’

‘Feck aff. And it’s never A&E, it’s not casualty, it’s an “emergency room” always when t’ey write it, and –’

‘Wait,’ said Liam, brow furrowed as he caught up. ‘Can’t afford – no, wait. _No NHS_?’ That was incomprehensible: as unimaginable as a world without snooker or _Top Gear,_ the Doctor or Comic Relief or _HIGNFY_ , _QI_ or _Blue Peter_ or leaves on the line _._ As a child, Liam had owed his _life_ to the NHS. (Zayn was grateful for the NHS’s success in Saving the Life of the Future Boyfriend, every day – and just now almost as grateful that Liam’s dismay had cut Harry off from going on about Nye Bevan (Harry, being the most middle-class of the four Englishmen, was inevitably the most loudly Labour-supporting sleb amongst ’em, and _why,_ Zayn sometimes wondered, couldn’t Hazza have been a Lib Dem like a _normal_ hipster sleb, anyway…).)

‘Chrisht, amn’t I tellin’ ye, _t’ey don’t know where we live_? And for some feckin’ reason _I’m_ always written feckin’ livin’ in and feckin’ growin’ up in feckin’ _England_ _._ Except not, because it isn’t.’

‘Isn’t what?’ Liam was still perplexed. He’d had the sense to whisper his question, though.

‘Not actually England, love,’ replied Zayn, softly. _Not proper tea and proper trifle, your mum’s resorting to Oxo for the gravy for a last-minute meal when a guest – me – shows up suddenly because we’d all gone home but I couldn’t go another day without you and sod the trains’ being inconvenient, and_ Match of the Day _and your dad’s rabbiting on about how much better telly was in the days of Parky and Morecambe & Wise …not war memorials and Remembrance Day poppies, Trooping the Colour and the county regiment exercising the Freedom of the City … not Parma violets and Wham bars and white mice with your pocket money at the sweeties shop: it’s all sharn, it’s not real … not soft rain and West Brom and soldiers with Marmite to your egg, and the way even Ruth sometimes admits missing _Last of the Summer Wine, _but not where your dad can hear her and gloat that he was right … it’s not mint cakes and Ribena and Branston pickle, not dripping and butties and chocolate digestives, it’s not school uniforms that you wore properly and I mucked about and rebelled against in days I can’t imagine because they were days before I knew you, it’s not beans and a fried slice and caff cooking … it’s not sitting in the family Mini or Mondeo on the hols, heading for the seaside, dreaming of having a Jag or a Lotus, a Bristol or a Bentley or a Roller, someday; not brown sauce and bicycles and building societies, Airfix and Poundland and toy trains from Hornby and how you’re really just James May in a boyband, Liam: it’s not actually_ England, _home, the England_ you _carry with you everywhere, that embraces me when you hold me and that I hold in the night when we’re in bed together. It’s not actually home, the home you are to me no matter where we are._

‘Oh.’

Niall was ignoring them: a survival tactic he’d first perfected with the _other_ couple in the group. ‘Bad enough t’at in half t’ese tales I’m bangin’ t’e drummer whiles he bangs t’e drums – he’s a grand lad, is Josh, but d’y’see myself shagging a member of t’e Tribes of Galway, do ye, even if I _was_ t’at way inclined? Jaysus. But t’e England in t’eir minds…. No railways – at least we’re never on ’em – and no NHS, no cricket –’

Liam made a pained noise. (Harry, irresistibly, began tapping out the opening bars to ‘Soul Limbo’.) Even Zayn and Louis frowned: Louis might have dreamt in his youth of glory on the footie pitch, but, damn it, he and Zayn _were_ Yorkshiremen both. Had Geoffrey Boycott lived in vain?

‘– no pubs so as ye’d know ’em.’ Here Niall’s voice took on a real accent of agony, as of a man describing his own private vision of Hell. ‘ _No pub grub,_ can y’ credit it? I could _weep,_ I feckin’ well could do. And, and – all coffee and no tay and I don’t know what. Alt’ough,’ he added, musingly, ‘I could be doin’ wit’ t’ose T’anksgivin’ feasts betwixt Fireworks Night and Christmas, t’e nosh sounds feckin’ deadly.

‘ _But._ ’ He waxed solemn once more.‘T’e schools t’ey imagine, and unis…. Mot’er o’ God. And life at our ages – in “apartments”, not flats, of course – and work and all. I gave over expectin’ t’em to understand _Ireland_ before ever we started, but _England_ _…._ All t’e pizzas are Americanos – do t’ey not know sweetcorn’s a pizza topping? – and t’ere’s not a balti house t’ be found –’ Liam and Zayn exchanged a look of horror – ‘and t’e _beer,_ Jaysus, t’e feckin’ _beer_ t’ey write us drinkin’…. Not a vitamin G in a raft o’ pints. Oh, it’s chronic, it’s enough to make a man join CAMRA.

‘Feck it. Me own craic’s depressing me, it is. But t’is is why I don’t let t’e four of ye read it but I’ve approved it first, t’e fanfic – and don’t y’ be Googlin’ it now, eit’er, whatever. It’s catastrophic, sure; it’s wojus cat. I’m tellin’ ye, mind yerselves, ye’d t’ink readin’ might make t’e homesickness better, but it does not at all. And we’d not be here, not one of us, did t’ey not love us, and I know t’ey show t’eir affection wit’ t’is, and yet – well, t’ey _mean_ to help, bless t’em. But it makes it worse, t’at we live, in t’eir minds, in a place t’at doesn’t exist, and looks enough like yer homes or mine t’ sadden, only.’

Harry reached a long arm lazily over and closed his ridiculously vast paw on Niall’s knee. ‘Liam? What time zone are we – no. Liam, what time is it in London?’

‘Almost 5.15.’ He’d not even wanted to pause for thought.

‘Niall,’ said Harry, tenderly. ‘Y’ want to do your magic?’ Niall paused, then smiled. It was only a second-best for him, but it was some comfort, and it was certain to comfort the others.

With a grin, he started the mysteries only he amongst them could fathom (or be arsed to learn, quite frankly): the VPN, the virtual address, the docking of devices.

Within five minutes, peace stole into the room over the speakers, borne upon the breath of home, if only a second home for Niall. Although it was the later broadcast impending, Zayn, Niall could just hear, was softly humming _Sailing By_ under his breath until the continuity announcer spoke.

‘And now the Shipping Forecast, issued by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, on Thursday 20 June 2013 at 0500 UTC.

‘There are warnings of gales in German Bight, Humber, Thames, Dover, Wight, Portland, FitzRoy, Sole, Lundy, Fastnet, Shannon.

‘The general synopsis….’


End file.
